After a long discussion, to which the high-born culprit listened with a beating heart—though his influence had packed the jury, which was composed of Mary’s friends and Rizzio’s murderers; and though he had bribed the judges and deterred the prosecutor—the court, actuated by sentiments best known to themselves, unanimously "_acquitted_ the Earl of Bothwell of all participation in the king’s death."
Had they brought in a verdict of guilty, another hour had seen his banner waving in triumph and defiance above the capital—for he was alike prepared to conquer or to die; but this decision of the jury, delivered by the mouth of Caithness, their chancellor, rendered all his warlike preparations nugatory. Had they found him guilty, he would boldly have rushed to arms in defence of his honour and life, with an energy and wrath that would alike have stifled the whispers of conscience and remorse; but they had declared him innocent, and he left the bar slowly and sadly, feeling in his inmost soul a thousand degrees more criminal than ever.
As he left the chamber where the High Court sat, his friends and vassals received him with acclamations—with brandished swords and waving pennons; and, with trumpets sounding, conveyed him through the great arch of the Netherbow to St. Mary’s Wynd, where, by his command, the host of the _Red Lion_ had prepared a grand banquet and rere-supper for the nobles and barons attending the Parliament.
Though "one of the handsomest men of his time," as old Crawford tells us, the Earl feared that, notwithstanding the assiduity of his attentions, Mary would never regard him with other sentiments than those of mere esteem for his services, and efficiency as an officer of state. "Men stop at nothing when their hands are in," saith an old saw; and, actuated by this spirit, Bothwell—ever keeping steadily in view that alluring object, which, step by step, had drawn him to the dangerous and terrible eminence on which he found himself—resolved, by one more desperate act, to reach the summit of his hopes, or sink into the gulf for ever.
Men talk of country, Christmasses, and court gluttony, Their thirty pound butter’d eggs, their pies of carps’ tongues, Their pheasants drench’d with ambergris; the carcasses Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts Were _fasts_, compared with the City’s. _Massinger’s City Madam._